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Pushing the Envelope Blog

Training for Safety and Health

Date: 03/08/23 | Category: Labor

A safe and healthy workforce are part of the lifeblood of any business or organization. The U.S. Postal Service is no stranger to industrial accidents of one kind or another — almost 56,000 in fiscal year 2021 — which is one reason USPS has a safety and health program. Employees are trained on the program to support and sustain the Postal Service’s work environment.

Recently, we wanted to assess just how effective the training is as it applies to avoiding or minimizing industrial accidents. We also wanted to determine the extent to which it promotes safety awareness. To do this, we selected a dozen facilities from different parts of the nation with a combination of a high and low number of industrial accidents per employee.

Postal Service management at all levels are responsible for employee safety and health. But as we note in our recent audit report, we found that management at all visited facilities didn’t always provide employees with consistent and relevant safety and health training, and some employees never completed required refresher training after an industrial accident.

Moreover, management didn’t consistently present safety talks to employees properly or adequately document and maintain records of completed safety talks. We also found deficiencies in training employees in first-aid or on safety equipment, like fire extinguishers.

We made seven recommendations to improve training, and USPS management agreed with all seven. But tell us what you think – if you work for the Postal Service, what has been your experience with safety and health training?

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Brent Gibbons
Aug 12, 2023
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Our scanners at USPS literally come up with "You are responsible for your safety" at login.
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Mike Oxlong
Mar 19, 2023
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Converting door-mounted mailboxes to curbline or CBU deliveries will reduce carriers' exposure to falls, dog bites, etc. on top of allowing them to service delivery points more rapidly. Bizarrely, there appears to be no clear procedure for an existing neighborhood (as opposed to a newly-built subdivision) to initiate a delivery mode conversion even if the residents desired that. It might be worth the USPS's time to outline such a procedure.
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charlie
Mar 13, 2023
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safety.....Look at the lack of an amber flashing light and warning message on the rear of the metris vans that they do frequent stops... fix it..save lives..
Mar 13, 2023
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There is no training
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Mike Oxlong
Mar 11, 2023
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The U.S. Air Force recently adopted the use of exoskeletons by aerial porters to minimize injuries and maximize the utility of its manpower. Many USPS employees have similar job descriptions to those of aerial porters. The USPS may wish to look into experimenting with reducing injuries and improving retention by leasing exosteletons from the air force for select roles.